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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009991">but i dream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/showzen/pseuds/showzen'>showzen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blaseball (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dark Seattle, Dark Seattle Corporates, Gen, it's a capitalist dystopia so all of the issues that come alongside that, jaywin if u SQUINT</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:28:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/showzen/pseuds/showzen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Goodwin is a worker first, and a godslayer second.<br/>Once upon a time those were the other way around. She remembers, growing up, a sword in one hand and a spear in the other, learning to smite gods with stuffed dummies. She was top of her class.</p>
<p>(or: goodwin morin hates her hometown)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Goodwin Morin &amp; Arturo Huerta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>but i dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Goodwin is a worker first, and a godslayer second.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once upon a time those were the other way around. She remembers, growing up, a sword in one hand and a spear in the other, learning to smite gods with stuffed dummies. She was top of her class.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>None of that matters now. The older warriors, the people who raised her, the people who taught her to carry a greataxe without losing her balance, they took the money. She can’t blame them, exactly—money’s tighter and tighter these days as Jamazon reaches its spindly, taloned fingers further into the corners of the planet and rackets up prices higher than they can reach—but that doesn’t stop it stinging. There’s some kind of bitter irony in the people who taught her to dismantle evil structures going ahead and handing them the bricks to make more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But anyway, they took the cash. Shoved Goodwin’s old favourite spear into her hands, clapped her on the shoulder, looked at her with tired, sorry eyes, and asked her to lead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She did. Because she loved them, once.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pinned the sun in the sky like a motivational poster to a break room corkboard, and now Seattle is permanently bathed in its flickering halogen glow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then Jamazon acquired her clan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So now Goodwin is a desk worker.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She files the paperwork for other acquisitions, these days.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Goodwin is a worker first, and a human second.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So’s everyone around here. She tries not to talk to anyone at work, but she can’t not notice the obvious. There’s Allison from the glass offices upstairs, who walks around with an earpiece and a dead-eyed stare and doesn’t answer if you say hi to her. Malik from the mailroom, who always wears the biggest, sweetest smile that never reaches his eyes. Teddy in management, whose kindness, she knows only too well, is a thin veneer over a snitching mouth and a lack of spine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jaylen from the bottom-floor offices, who Goodwin sees once, maybe twice a month. Jaylen with the twitchy smile and the eyes that glance left, right, left, like a cornered rabbit. Jaylen with the bony steel hands which she never seems to be fully in control of.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’s thought more than once about inviting Jaylen out to the back-alley bars, for a game or two of pinball, a drink or five to forget the day, and a song of protest or seven sung in hushed voices under the cover of night. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You can never be too careful out here. So she offers friendly, sterilised greetings to Jaylen on the rare occasion when she spots her, and keeps her thoughts shielded behind flat grey eyes, and gives nothing away.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But here, Goodwin is not a worker. Here she is pinball-master, glasses-on-top-shelves-grabber, loud-laugher, friend-maker, song-singer, dartboard-smasher. Here in the grimiest little underground bar in Seattle, she is so much more than how </span>
  <em>
    <span>they </span>
  </em>
  <span>value her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She rocks idly on her stool and crosses her arms. She’s had one too many drinks to be fun.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know,” she says to the person in the seat next to her. “I heard there’s another Seattle. Through a wall somewhere downtown.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a pause. “Oh yeah?” responds Arturo Huerta.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mhm. Their sun’s still intact, but they don’t use it much. It rains a lot, and it’s full of shadows, and it gets dark at night.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sounds nice,” Arty says, but she barely hears him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And they all play music and make art all day. They don’t have jobs to go to or blaseball to play, they just sit around and do nothing, and everything, and just </span>
  <em>
    <span>create</span>
  </em>
  <span>. No corporatism, no nothing. Everyone owns themself and nobody else, and everyone is- is friends with each other.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Arty nods, and once more says “Sounds nice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Goodwin doesn’t know how much of it is true, and how much of it is just silly stories passed around to keep the hope healthy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wants it to be true. All of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m going,” she announces. “I’m gonna find the wall, and go there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Really?” asks Arty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.” She lets her eyes flutter shut, leans back in her chair. “But I dream.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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